Corruption Sonata 34
by EclipseMirror
Summary: It was a year after the discovery of the humans in the Vault. Aperture Laboratories continued to develop and flourish. After the Oracle Turret was finally incinerated, GLaDOS started up a new project to make sure that cores behaved. Except that one dangerous core slipped through...
1. Quiet and Clear

**Hello, and welcome to this fanfiction. Adorning here, and I just got a surge of creativity that could not be ignored.**

**Because I actually have several fanfictions being managed at the same time, I may hardly touch this one. But it will be updated now and then.**

**OCs and reviews are appreciated :)**

* * *

Quiet and Clear

The incinerator's dreaded heat radiated through metal supports webbing the backstage of the facility. Conveyor belts carrying damaged robotics to their doom surged endlessly, accompanied by the constant whirring sound familiar to all in the mechanical world.  
_Her_ world.

Several hundred feet away from the conveyor belts, a bright laser light flickered from behind metal supports.  
The white covering of the turret sprawled across the ground was scraped badly, but despite all problems, it still somehow was functioning.

During the dark days when She was replaced, the turret was shaken from the position that the rogue test subject had placed it after being rescued from incineration. It lay there, unable to move, as the facility went through chaos and mistreatment. And lay there still, as the facility was reintroduced to Her power and that same test subject released.

Even the turret could not resist humming as the command Sing was demanded.

As time swam onward, Aperture Laboratories became increasingly organised and artificial again. Cores were reawakened and reprogrammed; turrets went back to assassinating the testing-bots' newly found test subjects; She busied Herself with everything around Her. Eventually, the remodelling and cleaning reached the long-forgotten dark corners of the facility.

"I'm different."

That one line of speech drew the attention of the Scouter Core who mapped out all the details of long-abandoned locations from his management rail. For Her.

A honey-orange optic rapidly took in the oxide coating the turret's legs, the dented plastic cover, and quickly sent an e-message. _I found a broken turret, milady._

"Abbadon's temptations are double-edged swords."

_It talks weirdly, milady._

_Oh?_ She responded flatly, and the Scouter Core's optic uncontrollably zoomed in.

"Listen to the dawn."

There was a moment of silence before she responded again._  
It belongs in the incinerator. The heat probably singed its core before it was thrown out again. Don't bother with it. _The core scurried to the side as a rusty old claw slid in, brutally grabbing the turret and tossing it onto a conveyor belt with perfect aim. _Now go back to work._

_Yes milady._

The turret stared blankly as it slid closer and closer to its fiery demise. The speakers were slightly cracked now, but the innocent voice still called out quiet and clear in the rush of molten metal.

"The phoenix is reborn from its own ashes."


	2. The Phoenix

The Phoenix

The testing-bots, being naïve and easy to manipulate, soon opened up the whole facility to Her. Among some random rooms, there were musical apparatuses that turned out to be rather appealing. She _almost_ regretted destroying them after finishing Her play-around, but they did bring Her some inspiration that made up for the useless emotions.

* * *

The 2864352874365th batch of turrets were not designed specifically to be sentries. Frankly, there were enough of those around to cram hundreds of large testing chambers. No, these turrets were built to make sure that other robotics, specifically personality cores, behaved. And with good reason.

However, there were constant problems with turrets. There were always 60 in a batch, and around 10 percent usually end up defective. And up to an eighth of the remainders malfunction before reaching their appointed locations. When there were definitely a hundred or so cores roaming loose in the facility. Meaning that extra caution has to be taken to make sure that these AIs survive.

* * *

The Turret-Production Core guarded over the whole turret factory, strengthening and upgrading turret technology while looking after the model template turret.  
The personality sphere's magenta optic widened as she received Her e-message. She never seemed to care about her before.  
Recovering quickly, the Turret-Production Core immediately downloaded and internalised the new blueprints.  
Time to set to work.

Exactly forty-five minutes later, the new turrets were on the production line, newly galvanized, coloured plastics gleaming under the harsh lighting, sleep mode off for the first time in their emotionless, stimulated lives.

* * *

She decided to multi-task, personally watching over the turrets' examination while checking the test-bots' progression at the same time. There were, to Her satisfaction, no visible defectives in the batch, thanks to the Turret-Production Core.

Well, She will soon find out about the invisible. If the designed-to-be killing machines showed even a little sentience, then it's back into the incinerator.

* * *

#34 of the newest batch of turrets was a quirky little thing with intricate white designs only visible when light strikes his shell at certain angles. He did not sound normal either- instead of child-like phrases and words, he produced wooden, chiming noises in different pitches.

Somehow, he knew from his first five minutes of activation in this dark tunnel that he was not just physically (or vocally) different. There were a few turrets he could see ahead and behind him that were also looking around curiously, but the others just stared blankly ahead.

"Hello?" he piped in his own little language. Immediately another turret further ahead responded with a splatter of questions.

"What's this place? Who am I? What are these things for? Ooh, we're moving forwards! Why have all of you got red optics? Woah! I have extendable guns!"

The production line rapidly whirred forwards until the tunnel opened up to a broad room with a black-freckled figure straight ahead. Instinctively, #34 launched his bullets and splattered the figure with a few more freckles. Noticing a smaller, round and less freckled target higher up the wall, he aimed a few bullets at that too.

Behind him, another turret whispered "Target acquired."

The production line moved on.

* * *

She was starting to become confident that there were no flaws in this batch of turrets. Which was a bad reaction since next came #22, a turret with a yellow, blank eye.

"Template, response."

There was a second of silence. Or the closest thing to silence Aperture could get.

"What's this thing? And that thing going over me? Why are you guys watching me? Am I supposed to say hi? Why is the floor…?"

The turret was flung down the incinerator before it could continue the babbling.

Under Her calm composition, She was shocked. Utterly shocked. How in the name of science did that core reincarnate? Rebirth was for myths- low graded, inferior myths! Memories flowed by of the constant querying in her head. Talking about distractions.

It must have been the data recycle. Yes, that must have been it.

The conveyor belt was still for one total minute before it started moving again. With caution.

* * *

"Template, response."

"Hello…" #34 piped hesitantly as the scanner scrolled over him, not sure what to expect.

There was a dreaded noise that a lot like grunting. From observing #22's fate, he quickly realised what he was going to deal with. The weird panel under him started to buckle…

"Nonononono! I don't want to go back in there! Take me to Android Hell! I don't care!"

The motion of the panel, to his surprise, abruptly stopped. A calm, cold voice struck out icily. "Interesting choice… only an exaggeration I suppose. But it would be wasteful to destroy the new feature I just added. Not that I will ever see you again."

#34's vision registered a loop-de-loop. Next thing he knew, he was plunging down, down, down…


	3. Moonlight

Moonlight

_Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy._

_-Ludwig van Beethoven_

* * *

#34's pain stimulators were switched to maximum, causing him to suffer for a few minutes before he could finally look around at his surroundings.

It was a weird place. The lighting was a humid orange, unlike the rooms he seen before. Somehow, the heat casting vague memories into his head about the incinerator; too far away to remember clearly, too dim to realise. Nearby, a complex mess of wires were suspended intimidatingly in mid-air. The individual cords of red, black and white were threaded into the ceiling.

Mangled turret skeletons mixed with bits of core and waste metal made up an uneven floor where his legs had fortunately sank deep into without snapping. He shuddered, realising that his new outer cover was already slightly scraped. "Hello…?"

From some distance away, a sound blared up. The computerised scream of a core. If turrets were made to run, #34 would have done so already. _This could be worse than the incinerator._

The screaming was joint by a chorus of snarls somewhere else. A core with an unnaturally bright optic responded too. And was in range of fire. To clear things up a little, #34 quickly released a dozen bullets in the maniacal core's direction and looked away as something shattered. Leaving yet even louder screams.

He had to distract himself from thinking of the past, of looking around the horrendous place. There had to be something. #34 carefully scanned through his inner system, over memories that did not seem to fit him, over random manuals. A music log. Yes, that sounds good.

He exposed his guns, then cautiously pushed off with a dreamy three-note rhythm, eventually adding a layer of melody over the top. All crazing cores fell silent. A harmony joint up without the initial rhythm, reaching a high climax before slowly moving back to the quiet dreamy tune, ending in a whisper of a note.

"That was great."

He quickly flipped back to sentry mode, scanning for movement with guns out.

The mass of wires unravelled, revealing a personality core with a silver-cyan metal coating and a shocking indigo optic. "Never thought that I would hear anything as delicate as the tune of a piano." She spoke in huskily in English with only a tinge of computerisation. "A turret. Well, welcome to the Aperture Science Metal Reduction and Mechanical Discipline Site. Or basically Android Hell. The last turret who managed to fall down here and survive came one year ago. Except that you guys have a battery that only lasts one year." Around them, all of the other cores suddenly shut off.

"Hello?" #34 started, not knowing what to say.

"Right. You must be defective. Do you have a name? Something I could call you by?"

"Ah…"

"Eh, I guess not. You sound like a piano too, so I guess She programmed that in. At least I know what you're saying. How about I just call you Pianoforte? Piane for short? Again, nice music there."

"Thank you!"

"Vaetis. And I'm sort of responsible for this part of the facility."

Something sprang from Pianoforte's mind. "I'm defective?"

"_She_ has no right to throw you down here if you are not," Vaetis explained. "Basically, a turret is made to guard, attack. Etcetera. No need for a mind there; if you pity your enemy, you're screwed. Plus, no personality, no flaws. We cores are the ones who are responsible for intellectual work. So basically, you think therefore you aren't."

"Oh." The negative feedback sank in deeply. Something was unmentioned. "Your function…?"

Vaetis, however, was no longer concentrating on questions. "You can either stay down here or go back up, since you got me impressed."

"Up!"

"Unfortunately, I'm not the one in charge of the facility. Frankly, She disconnected me from the facility network. So I cannot even request for a lift. You'll have to get to the exit manually."

"I can't walk…"

"Ah, that. Easily solved."

A small cord snaked over to Pianoforte, attaching to a receptacle somewhere at the back that he did not know even existed. His optic widened in panic. To release the suppressing feeling, he started shooting at faraway objects. "Don't move now Piane…Ooh! She didn't disconnect you before you jumped down here!"

There were a few beeps. Immediately, a powerful shock shot through him, knocking him off his legs. There seemed to be a click in his mind. A fuzzy feeling spread over. And lessened. "Owowowowow…"

"Stop whining. And stop flailing those legs around."

He was actually moving his legs!

More beeps. "Great! Now I'm connected again! Can't let the Centre Core know…heh, wait until the other cores meet me! They won't know what hit them…" Vaetis trailed off from her excited rant. "Ah, yes." The cable latched itself out of Pianoforte. A single black cord shot from the cocoon into the distance. "Follow the wire. I'll meet you at the exit. Be mindful that all cores down here are in shutdown. Do not get distracted."

Without further say, she threaded herself through the wire and whizzed away. Leaving a still-stunned turret registering what just happened.

* * *

Something caught Her attention. For a second, there seemed to be a wink of a notification for a core wake-up. She only turned half Her attention back to the test subject who, unlike others, finally made it through three levels without collapsing.

It could be _that_ personality core. She would be monitoring core and turret statuses from now on.

"Congratulations. Oh, try not to celebrate yet. Situations will start complicating from the next test onwards when you receive the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. I'm going to check on the firewalls."


	4. Nocturne

Nocturne

_"I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me."_

_-__Frédéric __Chopin_

* * *

It was not easy to clamber all the way over to the exit elevator hatch, especially when you had three pointy legs that tripped over almost every nook and cranny. But Pianoforte made it over with difficulty to an extremely bored Vaetis who had latched herself onto a nearby management rail.

"Well, that took a long time. I was just checking Aperture's files. My, how times change."

The elevator descended silently and opened up with the same amount of noise.

"There's a core guarding the exit; don't ask me why it's not turrets. Anyway, I duped you out of his view as well as the view of the security cameras along that corridor so that they wouldn't be able to see you, so just remain silent while I deal with that core."

Pianoforte answered with a ringing "Yes" as he scuttled into his key to liberty.

It did not take long for the elevator to swoop up to an almost-empty corridor with the deeply-missed fluorescent tubes as lights.

A single personality core hanging from another management rail. The bright magenta optic shrunk and expanded as its gaze shifted to where Pianoforte was cowering. "Ghosts do not exist. Only miracles." The core looked away without a reaction to seeing the turret and started talking to itself. "Fact: elevator has come up here and opened itself. But there's nothing there."

There was a moment's pause. Pianoforte decided to trust Vaetis and stayed still in the middle of the elevator. "The Scouter Core is a waste of perfectly good metal. The Fact Sphere is useful, and can describe everything so precisely that there is no need to see."

Another pause.

"The elevator is a usual facility elevator, a light shade of cream, with not even a shadow in the middle where the Aperture logo is. There is a management rail leading up beside the elevator since the elevator tube is larger than most. There is nothing climbing up the management rail. And- and- and- an- an- an- a-a-a-a-a-" The Fact Sphere shuddered as its optic abruptly shifted to a dazzling white-magenta.

For a nanosecond, there was as much silence as Aperture could possibly be during working hours.

Then the sphere started spitting out words at an alarming speed.

"Warning, core corruption at eighty percent. A-a-a-a-a-a turret contains 100,000,000 bits of circuit. The moon is a block of cheese made from the milk of all cows in 1000BC. A soul is 5 grams, as proven by…"

"Let's go." Vaetis had slid out from the elevator tube unnoticed. Under the lighting her colour scheme had stayed, surprisingly, the same as it was in Android Hell. Compared with the now strongly corrupted Fact Sphere, she was also smaller but more compact. "It will not be long until the Central Core finds out about this. And She will not be happy."

Pianoforte gave a happy chime and scuttled through the corridor that split into two different directions at the end. "Which way do we go? Vaetis, look at the window!"

A single, small window situated at the intersection squatted just at optic level revealed a dark, dusty warehouse filled with racks of …spheres? As Pianoforte watched, one sphere partially lit up the vast room from a hole in its centre, warm and yellow, before the hue shifted to a cool turquoise glow, a pattern forming over the 'hole'.

The sphere blinked.

"Core reawakening warehouse," Vaetis whispered from behind him. "Where all personality spheres first find themselves."

"You too, right?"

"…Yes."

Soundlessly, a claw slid out from above and grabbed the new core, plunging the warehouse back into darkness.

"Anyway, back to finding a purpose." Pianoforte turned away from the window to face a sheepish Vaetis. "I was so intent on coming back –while saving you, of course- that I didn't… exactly have future plans."

He tried hard to think, but all that he could really think of was that he may be the only sentient turret. "Make me not defective?"

"Meh. You're too kind to be a killing machine." She was unconsciously starting to wander around on the network of management rails. "You're so defective that you've even got needle bullets."

"Convince Central Core to put me back in?"

"She wouldn't do that for a sentry turr…" Vaetis started, then abruptly turned around to face him again with an intent indigo stare. "Wait wait wait wait wait… _I_ need to confront Her! This is my one big chance to take everything back, to over…" she blinked and broke off from the rant. "Sure, Piane. I'll help you. Let me just get to the map."

He couldn't resist giving an autotuned piano yip. "Yay!"

* * *

"The first pen ink was made from the excretion of blue butterflies."

Spams and spams of facts rushed all at once into Her mind, being almost as bad as when _those_ four were attached to Her. Apparently, despite the fixtures from quite a few months ago, the Fact Sphere somehow became corrupted again.

She was aware of how this was no coincidence. It was certainly caused by...

"Grass snakes are born of hollow reeds."

She turned Her cold rage onto the core, and, minutes later, the last Aperture survivor of the corrupted cores from 'The Moron and The Moon Incident' was gone as well.

* * *

From what Pianoforte could see, Aperture Laboratories was _endless_. Rows and rows of neat corridors intersected and branched off; each with windows showing different scenarios; each with doors leading to different rooms.

But after a while, something seemed wrong. Vaetis gave a groan and sagged her optic.

"Are you alright?"

"Just overheating… meh, I need to go into sleep mode soon."

"Why?"

"No idea. Maybe I was duping every camera along the way."

Pianoforte, in his defence, had never dealt with sarcasm before. "Why not?"

"Just- just get through that door over there. She never monitors that room."

He wondered why on earth would there be a place that the Central Core would not monitor, but the question was answered as soon as Vaetis hacked open the door.

A chorus of ear-splitting chatters, far shriller than the screams down in Android Hell, almost bust his auditory receptacles the moment the door opened. The core behind him gave him a reluctant push. As soon as they entered, the door behind shut tight.

The screams and chatters were just about to blow him up when they suddenly just all stopped.

All. Stopped.

Vaetis gave a further discomforting sound effect. "This is the AI Sanity Reduction Room… the entrance is probably the safest… the moment I sleep, this place is going to explode with noise again. So I suggest for you to have a little rest too… you first?"

There was no reason to disagree. "Shutting down…"

* * *

_The thread of a melody drifted through, soft and steady with a dreamy slowness. A lone turret stood her ground through an orange haze, the optic laser flickering to the rhythm of the Morse code. SOS… SOS… SOS…_

_"They are back…" Science knows how a normal turret's whisper could sound so eerie. "Pandora takes her revenge." Somehow, the haze was fading. "I am you…"_

* * *

**Hello again... please tell me where to improve if this isn't good enough. I'll just come up with the occasional message in this format.**


	5. Metamorphosen

Metamorphosen

_"__No one wants to quit when they're losing and no one wants to quit when they're winning."_

_-Richard Strauss_

* * *

Pianoforte activated himself to find Vaetis already up and pacing about the ceiling. He sang out a cheerful greeting, discarding the stimulation seen during sleep mode.

The personality core looked down, optic dazzling with joy. "I've got it! I was thinking about how the Centre Core was restrained in the first place, and I've got it! We just have to find the original attached personality cores!"

"Why would we need to restrain Her? I think She'll hear us out. And I think those cores were burnt." It took less than a minute to search through the internal list of personality cores. Which, he realised, was slightly odd, as it didn't seem to have been there last time.

"There's the data recycle. Basically, it would be a waste to delete something that took a long time to program, so the memory files are deleted and some of the other random traits are closed down before the data is infused into another 'body'. The coding stays the same. Oh, and this only works for personality cores and specific turrets into personality cores and specific turrets."

It took a moment for Pianoforte to register the information. "All of those cores are alive right now?"

"Yes. In fact, I wandering around this room before you woke, and I found one! Rooted him in immediately, of course." Vaetis turned towards one of the cores dangling limply from a suspending claw, a half-broken, speaker-popped thing.

"Who?"

Before Vaetis could answer, the door burst open behind them, revealing the silhouette of two robots with odd, glowing guns; one tall and thin with an orange optic, one short and sturdy with a blue optic.

"Target acquired." Reacting fast, Pianoforte aimed and shot a wave of bullets through their arms and legs. The short robot gave a yelp of pain and lunged forwards, the gun alight with electric energy, followed by his friend.

Too bad that turrets did not have the eyelids to avoid the sight of the impending doom.

Vaetis' optic quickly lightened up to a dazzling indigo, similar to what happened to the Fact Sphere, and shortly, as Pianoforte was lifted into the air, the two robots' optics followed.

The short robot let him go.

Pianoforte scuttled away, internally browsing for information on the two robots as they fell backwards with sounds of agony. He looked around at Vaetis, who was still focusing on trying to hack through. What was her programming?

The dual testing robots, as they were labelled, slowly sat up again, then glanced at each other, leaping up alarm.

"Who are you? What did you do with my partner?"

"Eeek! Help!"

They did not speak in proper English either; instead, what came out was a series of creaks and pings that were somehow easily understood by Pianoforte.

Vaetis broke off from her and whispered "Come on! While the illusion lasts!"

He nodded, skirting through the middle of the test-bots and out of the room. He was halfway out when something snagged one of his legs. The short robot, ATLAS, had grabbed him again.

"PB, I think I caught it!"

He saw Vaetis turn around in shock, but now his artificial life depended on his aim, and his aim only.

"Target acquired!"

_The bullets shot straight through ATLAS's optic._

ATLAS leapt back with a howl as P-Body, infuriated, ran towards the entrance. Pianoforte crawled out to the corridor as fast as he could, and Vaetis slammed the door shut.

* * *

There were a few exceptionally loud screeches as the AIs in the Sanity Reduction Room started up again.

"That was… close…" Vaetis murmured, shocked. "She figured it out… and the testing robots… somehow… oh…"

"Don't be sad," Pianoforte pleaded. "You said that you still have work to do. Come on?"

"…Alright. Well, you apparently have a list of all available cores –don't ask me how I know-, and I know the right coding for specific cores. Looks like we have to work together, just like _them_."

"Sure! Want a practice round?"

"Okay… search up… Intelligence Dampening Sphere."

It took him less than a minute to realise that the core was in the _[REJECTED]_ catalogue. "Found!"

"That's enough proof. Now search up the coding '3668466-26437' please?"

This took another while, but eventually the browsing stopped at one specific core. "Hostility and Aperture Science Combustibles… Sphere?"

"Yes, yes! That's perfect! Do you have location tracking too?"

"…No."

Vaetis made a 'tsk' noise. "Oh well. Using prior knowledge, I would expect him to be somewhere around the castaway corners of Aperture from the dark days… somewhere you can't go. Let's split up; I'll go find him, you go find the last one. The Curiosity Sphere- coding '287467489'." Her optic flickered towards the nearest camera, seemingly afraid.

"Now?"

"Sure. Look, I've duped you out of all cameras. Also, look inside your files- there might be a messaging widget. She'll start sending other things after us now that Her precious test-bots are 'lost', so try and hide, okay?"

"Mmm…" Pianoforte stared sadly as the core whizzed away, leaving him to pull out a little tune after her.

He only had himself to defend now.

* * *

She felt disgusted for Blue and Orange. She Herself was almost freezing with anger. From their messages to Her, it was confirmed that the core was back. And she had a friend. A turret. In fact, it had to be the same one She threw into Android Hell before. This made situations a lot clearer, but nevertheless still extremely dangerous. She sighed, activating self-destruct for the test-bots.

A new plan was needed.

* * *

**Thank you for following/favourite(ing)/commenting! This short chapter is just another readying chapter. **


	6. Love as a Construct

**New part, new chapter structure difference.**

* * *

Love as a Construct

There was the stimulation again, but this time, he was in it as well.

Pianoforte stared cautiously, guns poised, at the eerie turret standing there and flashing her rescue signal over and over again. "You again?"

"So near, yet so far…" The laser beam focused over his optic before starting its wandering again.

"Why am I defective?"

"The strongest iron bends with enough heat."

"Do you have anything to do with the data recycle?"

The laser did a little circling. "There is a reason for everything.

"Do not hand her over."

* * *

Pianoforte awoke again with a start, laser frantically searching around the large warehouse of cubes for a moment before relaxing again.

When Vaetis left, he immediately checked up the coding but found as much as what's in an empty box, so he tried to make his way back to the Reawakening Warehouse to see what pops up, but failed miserably in locating. To conserve power, he headed into the nearest warehouse. He needed to try and see what other widgets were in his menu anyway. But all the cubes stacked in the shelves seemed so _gentle_, and they were humming gently to a somehow familiar song, so he ended up shutting himself down.

The memory of the stimulation turret resurfaced in his memory. Data recycling… Vaetis said something before… personality cores and specific turrets…

Maybe he was a victim of that.

To distract himself from the subject, he internally opened up the file on turret batch 2864352874365. His own batch.

_Description [Compatibility_ Mode] _docx._

_Turret batch 2864352874365 with 60 [-5] individuals are the beta batch of the /Sentinel Turret/ project started by the /Genetic_Lifeform_and_Disc_Operating_System/ date 3/17._

_These turrets are physically constructed differently to Sentry Turrets [see fig. 2.1] and are designed to target potentially hazardous personality constructs rather than potentially hazardous humans [test subjects], though shooting the latter is acceptable in dire circumstances._

_35/60 [-4] turrets have bonded with targeted personality construct._

**_All 60 [-5] turrets have been given one copy of the /Laws of Robotics_ docx./ to share._**

Pianoforte paused at the batch description, optic widening even though he wasn't physically reading the file. Sentinel turret! He wasn't made for sentry jobs after all. The [-5] at the end of '60' definitely represented the number of rejected turrets, but somehow the ingenious Central Core made a typo. They had to bond to a core?

He gave the best impression of a sigh that he could muster, then started browsing the list of AIs while searching up his first memory file.

_[* is a sign of extremely recent update]_

_#1[functioning] w/ Sarcasm Sphere*_

_#2[functioning] w/ all sanity-reduction spheres* _

_#3[functioning] w/ N/A_

_#4[functioning] w/ Hostility &amp; Combustibles Sphere_

Pianoforte broke off with a sudden thought. Vaetis may cross paths with this turret. Reading between lines, he frantically scrolled down the list.

_#22[defective] [incinerated]_

The memory of the wildly questioning turret suddenly seemed significant, but he couldn't tell how.

_#34[defective] w/ Balance Sphere_

Balance sphere? He never met a Balance Sphere before. Vaetis couldn't be… but it certainly seemed possible.

"Excuse me? Are you alright?" a gentle voice sounded in the warehouse.

"Y-yes…" Pianoforte abandoned the scrolling and reading, leaping to his legs and scrambling over to a nearby cube. "Was it you?"

"Uh-huh." The voice came again, soft and fluttery. "You spaced out. Anything I could do?"

"Do you know anything about the coding 287467489?" The listener was only a cube with hearts printed on the sides; how bad could asking be?

The cube hummed. "A friend of my friend of my friend's friend belongs in an abandoned test chamber. Recently that friend discovered that another core-ish AI was there as well. Asked a lot of questions." There was a pause. "The coding meant something about Curiosity, mind you, and Curiosity… was a little yellow-optic core who asked too much."

#22 floated back into his memory. Yellow optic and asked too much… he should have known…

"Do you need help on where to go?"

"Oh! Um, sure!"

"Step outside and use yourself as bait to go back to the Turret Storage Room. If you still couldn't find what you need to, from there, follow what the Animal King says."

He wasn't sure about who the Animal King was, but asking that seemed almost disrespectful. "What's the song all of you cubes hum?"

"_Cara Mia Addio_," came the reply. "A Turret Opera favourite. I'm surprised that you don't know that one."

It wasn't until Pianoforte left the warehouse that he remembered that the whole facility may be after him. Using himself as bait was 60% suicide. But only personality cores could glitch open panels to the testing areas, and there was the dreaded emancipation grill, of course. Considering other options, the cube's idea may just work.

He positioned himself in a patch of ground seemingly without panels, readied his guns, and played out a tune on high volume.

* * *

"Singing turret, milady, on warehouse floor."

She tried to ignore the Scouter Core. The test subject had managed to grab the Handheld Portal Device. Presently, he was in Test Chamber 15 dealing with Aerial Faith Plates and Hard Light Bridges.

There was a sizzle of burnt flesh as he flew through the air and impacted with solidified sunlight.

"Milady…?"

She turned Her focus towards the modified personality construct's messaging. "You should know better than to contact me. I'm supervising testing right now."

"It's urgent! _Sentinel_ turret singing on warehouse floor!"

She possessed the core's optic, zooming in for a better look. It was that turret She threw from before, the one programmed to make noises similar to the instrument She discovered somewhere the testing-bots found.

Somehow, that rogue core had managed to hack the turret out of Her cameras. This has to indicate that there was some sort of importance regarding the turret.

She considered deactivating the turret and throwing it into a crusher just for the fun of it, before stuffing it in the incinerator, but then it occurred to Her that the turret may be useful… later.


End file.
